


No Beginning and No End

by ami_ven



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: mcsheplets, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 06:45:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4090987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ami_ven/pseuds/ami_ven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I didn't just wake up one morning in love with you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Beginning and No End

**Author's Note:**

> written for LJ community "mcsheplets" prompt #203 "beginning"

Rodney was in bed when John came back to their room, but he was still awake, sitting up against the headboard with his laptop, and he didn’t stop typing as the door closed.

John sank onto the foot of the bed, the opposite corner from Rodney, and said, “I don’t know.”

The typing stopped, but Rodney didn’t look up.

“I know it’s not the answer you want,” John continued. “But that’s the only one I have. There just… there isn’t just one moment, okay? I didn’t just wake up one morning in love with you.”

“I didn’t mean that, exactly,” said Rodney. He closed his laptop, but held the case against his chest. “I mean… you _do_ love me?”

“God, Rodney, of course I do! I didn’t just start up one day, that’s all. Like one minute, you were just a guy I knew and the next, you’re the love of my life.” John made a frustrated noise and ran his fingers through his hair, making it more unruly than it usually was. “Do you remember that thing about the frog, that gets put in water and when the heat is turned up slowly, it never even realizes it’s boiling to death?”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Rodney huffed.

John scowled. “You know what I mean. I didn’t know what was happening until I was all in. I don’t know how any of it happened, Rodney! I was still trying to figure out why you were even my friend, and I realized we’d been dating for months.”

“Cluelessness is not romantic, Sheppard, even from you.”

“No, it’s—” John made another strangled noise of frustration and twisted sideways, flopping back onto the bed, so that his hair just brushed Rodney’s blanket-covered knee. “Forget the frog thing. It’s like… when you’re injured, and everything hurts, you know exactly how much it hurts, but you don’t always realize when it stops hurting.”

“I guess,” Rodney said skeptically.

“You know I don’t believe in fate, or destiny, or whatever— and I know _you_ don’t, either— but I felt like something had been… not _missing_ , exactly, but… wrong, broken. Until I met you. And it wasn’t love, exactly, in the beginning. I just wanted to be around you, Rodney. Even when you were being a pain in my ass, I liked having you around.

John let out a long, shaky breath, still staring up at the ceiling. “I didn’t know that being in love with you was an option. I just knew that I wanted to be around you, until one day I realized that I couldn’t be without you. So, no, I don’t know exactly when I fell in love with you, because I feel like I always have been.”

There was a long pause, then Rodney leaned into his field of vision, smiling softly. “I’m really kind of impressed you said all of that out loud.”

“Yeah, well,” said John, managing to return his smile. “Some things are worth it.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter _when_ you started being in love with me,” Rodney allowed. “As long as you _are_.”

“Always,” John promised. “Don’t ever doubt that.”

“I don’t,” said Rodney. “I don’t, really. But if I knew what made you fall in love with me, before, I could do it again.”

“Rodney—” John scrambled upright, to crowd Rodney against their headboard and kiss him until they were both breathless.

“John—”

“Just be you, Rodney,” John said. “That’s what you did, that’s what made me fall in love with you. Just keep doing that.”

“I— Okay,” said Rodney, and kissed him again.

THE END


End file.
